Twitter Acquires Keyword Management Firm AdGrok

Twitter announced it has acquired AdGrok, a keyword management firm that specializes in helping companies run advertising campaigns through Google’s AdWords service. AdGrok is designed to simplify AdWords for small business advertisers who don’t have the knowledge or time to completely understand and maximize the use of AdWords.

With the merger, AdGrok employees will join Twitter’s revenue engineering team. Twitter plans to discontinue AdGrok’s Google AdWords management product on June 30. Twitter has already announced plans to roll out Promoted Tweets in the 4Q 2011. Promoted Tweets match up advertisers with Twitter account holders who have a larger follower base.

Ryan Sarver, Director of Platform for Twitter, has said that he believes Promoted Tweets will act as the equivalent of Google AdWords. The acquisition of AdGrok positions Twitter well to target advertisements to consumers. It definitely appears as if Twitter is laying the ground work to compete in the pay per click market.